Viewing Page Info

The Page Info dialog box consists of several tabs that display different kinds of information about the page you are viewing. This section provides a brief overview of the information available in each tab.

To view Page Info for the page currently displayed by the browser, open the View menu and choose Page Info. You can then click the tab that corresponds to the kind of information you want to view.

Most of the information displayed by the General, Media, Forms and Links tabs in Page Info is taken from the HTML source for the page. This information is usually of interest only to web developers and other specialists.

For detailed information about HTML, including the tags displayed by Page Info, see the HTML 4.01 Specification.

General (Page Info Tab)

When you choose Page Info from the View menu, the General tab displays basic information about the page that you are viewing in the browser.

The top portion displays the following information:

• Title: The name of the page (if it has one).
• Address: The Uniform Resource Locator for the page—that is, the standardized address that appears in the Location Bar near the top of the browser window.
• Type: The document type of the page (usually text/html for web pages).
• Render Mode: Indicates whether the browser is using quirks mode or standards compliance mode to lay out the page. Quirks mode takes account of nonstandard behavior that may be used by some older web pages designed for older versions of web browsers that are not fully standards compliant. Standards compliance mode adheres strictly to standards specifications. Your browser chooses the render mode automatically according to information contained in the web page itself.
• Text Encoding: The text encoding used for this HTML document.
• Size: The size of the file, if available.
• Referring URL: The address from where the current page has been reached, if available.
• Modified: The date the page was last modified, if available.

The Meta portion displays the metatags specified by the page. Metatags provide information about the type of content displayed by a page, such as a general description of the page, keywords for search engines, copyright information, and so on.

The Security information for this page portion contains security information concerning ownership and encryption. More details are available in the Security tab.

Media (Page Info Tab)

When you choose Page Info from the View menu and click the Media tab, you see a list of all the images and other media elements displayed by the page.

The top portion lists basic information about each element, including its address (URL) and type.

When you select a media element listed in the top portion of the Media tab, the bottom portion displays available information about that element, such as description, size, or dimensions.

You can also see the selected element at the bottom of the dialog box. To see larger images, you need to click the lower-right corner of the Page Info dialog box and drag.

To save a media element as a separate file:

• Save As: Select the element you want to save, click Save As, and navigate to the location where you want to save it.

Forms (Page Info Tab)

When you choose Page Info from the View menu and click the Forms tab, you see information about all the forms displayed by the page you are currently viewing in the browser.

The top portion lists basic information about the way each form in the page is specified in the HTML source:

• Name: The form's name, if any.
• Method: The HTML method used to send information captured by the form back to the web server. GET appends your filled-in values to the website address to which it submits the form. POST sends the values to the website as parameters that can be read by a program on the website.
• Form Action: The URL of the program to be invoked when the form is submitted.

When you select a form listed in the top portion of the Forms tab, the bottom portion displays detailed information about the way each of that form's elements is specified in the HTML source:

• Label: The element's label (if it is tagged as such in the HTML).
• Field Name: The element's name.
• Type: The element's input type, such as TEXT (for submitting text), RADIO (for a radio button), or HIDDEN (for storing information that is submitted but not displayed on the screen).
• Current Value: The current value of the element. For example, the current value of a text element is the text it currently contains.

Links (Page Info Tab)

When you choose Page Info from the View menu and click the Links tab, you see a list of all the links available on that page. The following information is displayed for each link:

• Name: The text displayed in the browser as a link.
• Address: The URL for the page to which the link points.
• Type: The type of link, such Anchor (for a link to a specific place in an HTML document) or Form Submission.

Security (Page Info Tab)

When you choose Page Info from the View menu and click the Security tab, you see information about authentication and encryption for the web page you are viewing. The top portion indicates whether the website's identity has been verified, and the bottom portion describes whether the page was encrypted when it was received by the browser.

You can also open the Security tab directly by clicking the lock icon in the lower-right corner of any browser window.

The top portion of the Security tab can display any of these messages:

• Website Identity Not Verified: The website you are viewing did not present a certificate to authenticate itself. Therefore, Certificate Manager cannot verify its identity. It is possible, though unlikely, that the website is not what it claims to be.
• Website Identity Verified: The certificate that Certificate Manager has used to verify this website's identity was issued by a certificate authority (CA) marked as one that you trust. You can be reasonably confident that the website is what it claims to be.

The bottom portion of the Security tab can display any of these messages:

• Connection Not Encrypted: It is possible that other people can view information sent from your computer to the website or information sent by the website to your computer, but it is unlikely that someone is actually doing so.
• Connection Encrypted: In general, the strength of an encrypted connection depends on the length of the keys used for encryption, measured in bits. The longer the key, the stronger the encryption—that is, the harder it is to for an unauthorized person to unscramble the encrypted information.

Lack of any encryption or lack of strong encryption should be of concern only if you are sending or viewing confidential information, such as your credit card number.

You can quickly check the encryption status of a web page by noting the state of the lock icon at the bottom-right corner of the browser window. For more details, see Checking Security for a Web Page.